Aftershock
by Bounced
Summary: The road to recovery is long and by no means easy. Follow-up chapters to Dear Mokuba and From Seto, chronicling the journey to come to terms with Seto's kidnapping
1. Day One

Mokuba mentally praised the Domino police force while he stepped out of the car and away to give Seto the space to slide out. There were no reporters in their front yard either.

Seto hesitated in the back seat for a second longer than necessary before following after Mokuba. Seto gave the front yard a brief glance before focusing on the house. Mokuba had to wonder if Seto would raise an objection to staying with Roland since he had just gotten back. Familiarity was supposed to help, and going back to the mansion might have been a better option, if Mokuba felt safe returning.

Mokuba wanted to say something, anything, to draw some insight from Seto. His brother's hands still played with the hem of his shirt, and his eyes slipped in and out of focus. There was a tinge of frustration in the set of his mouth that Mokuba wanted to question.

But he didn't.

The front door was unlocked. Mokuba walked in first, but hung back to wait on Seto. Roland stayed behind the wheel of the car, and Seto seemed stuck on the front porch. He reached out and ran his fingers over the wooden beam supporting the overhanging roof, picking at a piece of peeling paint.

A gust of wind blew and Seto closed his eyes. The frustration faded for a second while Seto's poorly cut hair lifted and fell. The hand on the beam wrapped around it and clutched like the small breeze would blow him away.

When it stopped, Seto's eyes opened, but he was out of focus again. The hand on the beam shook before returning to the hem of the shirt.

Mokuba didn't see Olivia inside. She was likely checking on Eli, or just staying out of the way, which Mokuba appreciated. Seto hadn't reacted well to the new faces at the police station, and even though she was Roland's wife, she was still a stranger.

"Big brother?"

The focus returned. Seto looked at the beam, trapped in a vice of his fingers only seconds before, and then back at Mokuba. It took him a moment, no more than a few seconds, but Mokuba thought Seto didn't recognize him. The moment faded and Seto nodded.

Seto gave the living room the same attention he had given the front yard. It was a quaint room, two couches, a coffee table, neutral walls, a few miscellaneous decorations, and the fireplace under the television. Mokuba couldn't follow Seto's gaze when he looked at the fireplace.

Seto took a step forward to look into the adjoining kitchen, just visible through the narrow doorway. The door to Roland and Olivia's room was closed, leaving just the short hallway to the guest room—Mokuba's room—and the nursery. There was a bathroom in between the two bedrooms, but that door was closed as well.

"My room is through here," Mokuba said.

Mokuba's bedroom was still Roland's guest room. He hadn't settled in well because he was certain that any day he would be asked to leave. He had also moved in without any of his personal belongings, and had only managed one trip back to the mansion before Gozaburo made a phone call telling the security team to switch out the locks in his absence, not that Mokuba ever had a key. The message was clear and Mokuba didn't fight it.

He had about a tenth of his wardrobe hanging in the tight closet, and a few shirts and jeans that only filled the top drawer of the dresser. The top of the dresser had some of Olivia's décor scattered, and the one photo Mokuba had brought with him.

He would need to take down the mirror.

The picture caught Seto's attention. He stepped over to the dresser and picked up the frame, staring for several seconds at the photograph of the two of them playing chess at the orphanage. It was the same photo Mokuba had used when making their lockets all those years ago.

"He took it from me," Seto said. His thumb ran over the glass covering Mokuba's face.

"Your locket?"

With a nod, Seto put the picture frame back down.

"I guess it's good we have the original."

Although Seto had set the picture down, he hadn't stopped looking at it, and he still rubbed the hem of his shirt between his thumb and index finger.

"How long have you been here?" Seto asked. He lifted his gaze up to Mokuba, who kept a comfortable distance between them.

"A couple months."

"So you were alone with Gozaburo—"

"Seto—" Mokuba started, making Seto flinch. "—Big brother, it really wasn't that bad."

"You went to the police."

"The police came to me. It was really your letters, big brother," Mokuba said. Although just a syllable longer than Seto's name, calling him "big brother" so often felt clunky.

"The scar?"

Mokuba's hand moved to cover the slash on his arm. It wasn't even that bad of an injury, but the skin on his forearm scarred several shades darker than the skin around it, making it stand out more than the others on his legs or back.

"That glass table in his office. I kind of went through it."

"And that's not that bad?"

Mokuba pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. It was the first hint of sarcasm he had heard from Seto in years. It was just the faintest touch of it, masked with the quiet, crackling voice Seto had used since the police station.

Mokuba wondered if it hurt him to talk after being quiet for so long.

"Do you need a drink or anything?" Mokuba asked.

Seto nodded and gave the picture another look.

They bumped into Olivia as she stepped out of Eli's room. Seto took a step back from her, and thankfully, she didn't try to shake his hand.

"I'm Olivia," she said. She had tugged her hair up into a messy bun at some point after Mokuba and Roland had left just a few hours ago. Pieces of it fell around her face and the back of her neck, and a blanket was thrown over her shoulder.

When Seto didn't answer, Mokuba jumped in. "We're getting a drink. Do you need anything?"

She shook her head. "No, thank you. And," she started, looking at Seto, "—you should do whatever you need to feel comfortable here. You can't make more of a mess than having a newborn does."

Seto responded with another nod.

Olivia didn't stay any longer, but went into the living room, where Roland was examining the arm chair by the front door. Mokuba would have asked why the arm chair required such scrutiny, but he was on a mission to get Seto a drink.

In the kitchen, Seto leaned against the dining table tucked into the corner while Mokuba went to the fridge. He rummaged through the half-empty contents that foretold of an upcoming trip to the grocery store, listing out any liquids he could find.

"Water's fine," Seto said, just before Mokuba started listing condiments.

Mokuba grabbed a bottle from the shelf and considered tossing it over, but decided to just walk the distance to hand it to Seto. After passing it over, the fridge made a beeping sound that signaled that the door hadn't closed all the way. Mokuba walked back to close it.

When he turned around, Seto was holding the cap of the water bottle in front of his face. He gave it several moments of examination before touching it to his lips.

There was something behind the action that Mokuba didn't understand and he thought he should keep his own mouth closed until Seto finished with whatever it was he was doing. The hand holding the cap quivered, just barely, and his eyes had turned vacant.

Seto blinked back into focus and set the cap on the table beside him.

Mokuba wanted to ask, but didn't know what all he was allowed to, if it was insensitive to ask any question that would lead back to what had happened. He wanted to know why Seto kept stopping. There wasn't a better word for it, at least, not one that came to mind. Every time Seto's eyes got that vacant look, Mokuba almost reached out and shook Seto. But that could have been what Haru did if Seto had been the same just the day before.

Shaking his head, Mokuba tried to forget about the fact that just a few hours before, he had thrown Seto's letters into the still-burning fireplace, and even just a day before that, Seto had been trapped with that man. It hadn't even been a day, and they were just supposed to start living like nothing had happened? Shouldn't the police have kept Seto there longer?

A knocking came from the doorway by the kitchen, and Mokuba and Seto both turned to see Olivia standing there, purse in hand.

"Mokuba, could you stand next to your brother for a second?"

Mokuba frowned and checked with Seto for unspoken permission to get close. Seto didn't seem to have a negative reaction to the idea, but Mokuba made sure to leave a cushion of air between them.

"What are you doing?" Mokuba asked.

"Comparing your sizes. I'm pretty good at shopping for you, Mokuba, but he's a bit taller. I'll have to size him up one, no, probably two sizes."

"You're going shopping?" Mokuba asked.

Olivia smiled. "Just for a few things. Pants mostly, since I think your shirts will fit him."

Sharing clothes with Seto felt wrong. Not that Mokuba minded, but for so many other reasons. They were close enough to the same size now. They were living together. Seto was alive.

And there was, of course, the fact that Mokuba had no money, and Roland and Olivia were using their own income—limited now that he had lost his job at KaibaCorp—to support Mokuba and now Seto.

Mokuba decided to start looking for part time work, once Seto was more established at the house.

They stayed in the kitchen for a while, Seto and Mokuba, after Olivia left, giving Roland the charge of feeding Eli when he woke up. Mokuba took a step back from him while Seto finished off the water bottle, and then offered him another one. Seto declined the offer, instead asking where the trash can was.

The bottle was thrown away, but not the cap, which Seto held onto.

"So," Mokuba said, trying to think of anything to follow. "Do you want to do something?"

Seto gave the question a second of thought, gaze locked onto the bottle cap.

"Shower," he said.

"Okay. I'll grab a towel. You'll have to wear those pants again, but I can get you a new shirt."

Seto followed Mokuba back to his bedroom and stared while Mokuba rifled through his drawer for a shirt. He had one in mind, a black one he had gotten recently at a 5K Roland participated in. He had roped Mokuba into volunteering, probably to get him out of the house after weeks of hiding, and they had arrived too late, leaving only large shirts available.

"Towels are in the hall closet."

Seto took the shirt Mokuba offered and glanced into the hallway. His jaw clenched and his thumb tapped the bottle cap.

"He called it zoning out," Seto said. The way he ended the sentence drifted, making Mokuba believe that Seto would continue without being prompted. And he did a few seconds later, never looking at Mokuba. "He'd ask if I was awake, which I felt more appropriate. I can't, stay in—in the _present_ for very long."

Nodding like he understood, Mokuba kept quiet for Seto to continue. He waited for Seto to lead into a subject that tied into a shower, because Mokuba just knew that Seto still had to be logical enough to have a reason.

"It's hard to wake up without a trigger," he said. "It's been," he paused again to rub his thumb over the plastic cap, and then to touch the hem of his shirt. "It's been the things I can't rationalize, but in the shower, I won't have those."

Mokuba's nod that time was in understanding.

"You want me to come in with you?"

The tension in Seto's shoulders when Mokuba asked the question answered it for him. At that moment, Mokuba didn't think he could have denied Seto anything, even such a strange request as that. If Seto asked him to run laps around the house, Mokuba would have done so without question.

"It's cool, big brother. I can bring a book or something."

Seto's shoulders softened a bit, but not enough for Mokuba to think that Seto was actually relaxed. The Seto who Mokuba had last known never would have made a request like that, but this wasn't that same Seto. This wasn't his proud brother who had been training to take over KaibaCorp. He wasn't the son of Gozaburo Kaiba.

He was still that man's prisoner.

Mokuba had a textbook on the bedside table. After moving into Roland's house, he hadn't been able to keep being taught by the private tutors Gozaburo always kept on staff. It had been too late in the year to enroll in public school, so Mokuba had just been teaching himself throughout the summer, making sure that he could pass the test allowing him to start his senior year in the fall. He was fairly certain that he would get to the test and find it all to be the curriculum he had studied years ago, but to be extra cautious, he studied.

In the hallway, Mokuba grabbed a towel and washcloth for Seto, carrying the items into the bathroom for him. The guest bathroom wasn't really big, which didn't leave Mokuba much space to hang out while Seto took his shower. He camped out on the floor, leaning back against the door.

He opened the book and lowered his face to give Seto as much privacy as he could. The point of both of them being in the room was that Seto could see Mokuba, not for Mokuba to see Seto. So he scanned the words on the page, vaguely processing something about Napoleon and some island, but was really more focused on watching Seto without watching Seto.

Seto didn't face the mirror. His back was to it so that Seto faced the wall across from it, where the towel rack was mounted, along with a framed painting of some flowers. Mokuba caught the next time Seto "zoned out," blank gaze centered on those flowers. Mokuba remembered one of the letters Seto had written, an in-depth description of one of the pictures in the room where he had been stored. The picture had been of a flower.

Mokuba coughed.

Although he was looking at the textbook, he saw Seto's movement. There was a brief moment when Seto looked to Mokuba, but then went back to undressing. Then Mokuba really tried to keep his eyes down.

But he saw Seto's step into the shower, and the dark skin around his bare ankle.

Once Seto was behind the glass wall of the shower, Mokuba lifted his head a bit. The mirror had already started to fog, and the glass on the shower door, a textured glass that wasn't really see-through, had drops of water spotting it.

Mokuba gave the clothes Seto had discarded a glance and tried to decide if he should get them back to their owner, whoever their owner was. He extended a foot to move the t-shirt and sweatpants before the realization hit him.

That was all the clothing he had been wearing.

If he thought that he could leave without scaring Seto, Mokuba would have called Olivia and told her to buy underwear. Maybe she would think about it. Roland had to have told her what all the letters said, even if Mokuba had only let him read through once.

The glass door hadn't been closed all the way. About a two inch gap separated the door from the shower wall, even every few minutes, Seto would peek out, sometimes so quickly that Mokuba only saw the movement, not his brother. Mokuba couldn't predict the times Seto would look out, so he did his best to not be looking up when Seto looked out.

Seto's shower lasted at least an hour. By the time the water turned off, the room had cooled down, so Mokuba knew that Seto had gone through all the hot water. The fog on the mirror had begun to turn into water droplets, a few of which had rolled down, leaving long trails from the top to the bottom.

A crash shook the door Mokuba still leaned against, and it took him a second to process where it had come from.

He tossed the book down on the tiled flooring and slid the glass door open the rest of the way. Seto sat on the tub floor, holding his knees up to his chest with his dripping hair covering his face. There wasn't any blood or any immediate visible injury. But he couldn't think of a way to get Seto back to his feet, or check that he wasn't hurt, without touching him. It had been one thing to hug him back at the police station. But he wasn't dressed now.

"Big brother?"

Seto didn't move, except to press his face down to his knees.

Now that Mokuba was closer, he could see all the scars Seto had tried to keep hidden from him during their time with Gozaburo, and he could see the scar he had known about from the letters. He didn't want to see Seto like that. Seto shouldn't be like that.

Since Seto didn't respond to Mokuba's voice, Mokuba decided to try something else. He found the bottle cap from where Seto had set it on the vanity and knelt down beside the shower.

"Here," Mokuba said. He held it out to Seto, but when Seto didn't move to take it, he touched the plastic to Seto's arm.

Seto flinched at the contact, but his head angled to see what had caused it. When he saw it—not Mokuba, just the plastic cap—Seto reached a shaky hand for it, pressing it against his lips.

A few deeps breaths, several rapid blinks, and Seto was awake again. His lips twitched, almost in a smirk, when he saw the plastic cap.

Seto reached up for the shower bar to pull himself to his feet.

Mokuba's eyes shot down to leave Seto with what modesty he could, but ended up caught staring at the ring of scars on Seto's ankle. It stood out more than Seto's others, more than Mokuba's own scars, and probably the one Seto most wished would fade.

Stepping back, Mokuba picked up the book he had tossed aside and straightened out the now-bent pages. He could see Seto reaching for the towel.

"I have some questions," Mokuba said. His shoulders shrugged up while he spoke, worried that Seto would shoot down the idea.

"Okay."

That was too easy.

"I mean, I just don't want to say something accidentally that will make you uncomfortable."

"I told you pretty much everything," Seto said, pulling on his shirt even though he had to still be wet. Mokuba didn't ask his questions until they were back in the bedroom.

Mokuba thought back to the letters Seto had written him. There had been so many, and so many with trivial details that somehow had not helped in rescuing him.

"You don't respond to your name."

"He used it a lot."

"It's your name."

Seto leaned back against the wall and turned his head so he could look out the window. It had started raining while Seto was in the shower, so Mokuba jumped up to lift the window. The rainfall tapping against the pane and the bush outside made some of Seto's tension leave.

"I-" Seto started, but bit off the end of the sentence. He left his mouth open, and Mokuba could hear the heavy exhales over the rain.

"I hear him saying it."

Mokuba nodded like he understood when he really didn't. Or maybe he did. That final smirk from Gozaburo had never left him, and every so often, whether on the television or walking down a street, someone would make a similar expression and Mokuba would freeze up. So, he understood a little.

"Should I not touch you at all?"

That one took longer to answer. With his eyes still on the window, Seto started playing with the hem of the shirt. His eyes glazed over and for a second, Mokuba thought Seto looked terrified.

"For now," Seto said, after he had blinked and woken up. "At least, no skin."

"Okay, yeah. They don't have another guest room. Do you want me to sleep on the couch?"

"I think—" another deep breath. "—that if I woke up, alone in a strange room..."

Seto stopped and rubbed his eyes, which Mokuba thought might have been a mask for the clenching in his jaw. But clenching his jaw made his lips tighter and only proved to Mokuba how little control Seto had over himself.

"I don't think you should sleep on the couch," Seto said.

Mokuba took his seat at the foot of the bed again and rested back against it. He could face Seto from that position, but he wasn't close enough to cause Seto to tense or flinch from him. Seto had said not yet, that Mokuba would have to give him time to get closer, but Mokuba was selfish. He wanted to be able to hug Seto and promise him that everything would be fine.

The end of the throw blanket draped across the end of Mokuba's bed brushed against his cheek. Mokuba looked at it, then back at Seto, who had moved his hands to cover as much of his arms as he could.

The scars on his arms were a lot more faded than the few Mokuba had.

"Here," Mokuba said. He tugged the blanket down from the mattress and held it out to Seto.

"How did I get out?" Seto asked while accepting the blanket to wrap it around his shoulders.

"They didn't tell you?"

"I didn't hear them."

Mokuba adjusted his position and like Seto, kept his eyes on the window.

"I don't know all of it. It didn't seem as important as the fact that you got out. But they said that Jim Grayson, I think they said was his name, got into a fight with Haru and turned him in."

"That fight was a long time ago."

"It was?"

Seto nodded. "It snowed when we switched houses."

"And that's when you left the notebook?"

Another nod.

"It hasn't snowed since February," Mokuba said. "I assumed that he had just come forward today."

"So, Jim didn't tell the police about the first house?" Seto asked.

"I think they said that a landlord stopped receiving rent. That landlord found your notebook."

Seto's head turned from the window the stare at Mokuba in what was either horror or surprise. "That was a rental home?" he asked.

"I guess."

Seto pulled the blanket more tightly around him, and quietly, so Mokuba struggled to hear, Seto said, "So that's why he didn't build the crosses."

When Mokuba questioned it, Seto didn't answer.

* * *

Updates for Aftershock may come sporadically. I apologize in advance for the space between chapters.


	2. Day Six

Seto and Mokuba sat beside each other on the couch, Mokuba's foot bouncing anxiously and Seto's hands clasped together around the bottle cap. He stared out the window in the waiting room and watched the rain glide down the pane in uneven streams. It distracted him from the flickering gazes that couldn't seem to keep away from him.

The world knew he was alive. People were bound to stare, especially in a therapist's office.

"Seto? Mokuba?" Jennings called from her office door. It drew the gazes of the few other people in the waiting room, hopefully all scheduled to meet with another doctor, but Jennings ignored the eyes and held the door open for them.

Seto stood before Mokuba, who jumped to catch up a second later. They walked side by side into her office and followed her direction to sit on the couch while she closed the door. Seto waited to hear the lock turn, but it didn't. None of the locks ever turned anymore. He ran his thumb over the bottle cap.

Jennings took her seat and left her notebook on the table beside her chair, a sofa built for one that looked less comfortable than the couch.

"I'm Amandine Jennings," she said. "For today, I'd like the three of us to talk. See if you're comfortable with me, because if you aren't, I can refer you over to some of our other counselors."

"Our insurance only covers fifty-two visits yearly," Mokuba said. "So I won't be around much."

"It's still important for you to feel comfortable, Mokuba. I'm going to be spending a lot of time with Seto, so if you feel something is off, tell me. We'll find something that works."

Seto couldn't tell if she was trying too hard or actually being genuine. He also couldn't tell if she was real, but as long as Mokuba was acknowledging her, Seto would do what he could to really see her, not the green eyes that never stopped staring.

"How does this work?" Mokuba asked.

"It's just talking. We can start with the last few days, if you like. It's almost been a week now."

Seto rolled the bottle cap around his fingertips and closed his eyes. She was asking for his opinion. His mind couldn't interpret his kidn—Haru's—words into that. This was real. They were here.

"It's going," Mokuba said. "Roland and Olivia don't have that much of an income right now, so one of us is having to sleep in the recliner every night. Can't afford another bed, I mean."

"You're sharing a room?"

Mokuba nodded.

"How's that going?"

An uneasy glance at Seto preluded Mokuba's answer. " _I'm_ fine with it. I like knowing he's there."

Seto forced his gaze up to meet Jennings's eyes, nodded, then looked back down.

"Then it's just the bed thing that's a little uncomfortable."

"It's not like there's really space for another one—a cot, maybe. The recliner's not bad."

Seto liked the recliner, but telling her that would spark questions he wasn't ready to go into. Sleeping while sitting up triggered the part of his mind that let him know he was awake. Not awake as in not-sleeping, but not that haze he had been in, and still fell in too frequently. The bed was raised off the ground, and that did some to help once he had woken up. Just not nearly as much.

"And Roland and Olivia, they're your guardians?"

"I guess?" Mokuba said. "I'll be eighteen next month, but that's probably where we'll be staying for a while."

"Will you be starting college?"

Mokuba looked down and exhaled slowly. "No, I still have to do my senior year."

Jennings nodded and Seto got the feeling she would have written something down at that moment if she had her notepad in hand. He didn't think it was that big of a revelation. Maybe just that Gozaburo let Mokuba stay behind a year.

"Classroom? Online?"

"Probably online. Senior year seems like a pointless time to start a classroom setting."

"You might try for a GED," she offered.

"I've thought about that too. I'd like to get a job somewhere so I can help Roland and Olivia with the bills. Having my days open would really help with that."

He hadn't mentioned that to Seto. If he worked even part-time, that was twenty hours a week Seto wouldn't know where he was, twenty hours for him to slip back into the haze. The bottle cap might not wake him back up if Mokuba wasn't there to double-check. He didn't know how he would adjust to that, if he would adjust to it.

"What sort of work would you be looking for?"

"Anything that will hire me? Maybe low profile. Working as a cashier in a city where everyone recognizes me would be pretty tough."

"Has it been hard? Being recognized?" she asked, without missing a beat, as if she had rehearsed the entire conversation a dozen times beforehand.

Mokuba looked to Seto again. "Not really," he said, "We haven't left the house much. The reporters coming by was the worst so far. They're still looking for pictures of Seto."

They had probably gotten some on their way over. Leaving the house hadn't been discreet. There wasn't a garage to park the car in, so they had been forced to leave out the front door where the cars had been loitering for days, waiting. Maybe people would get their picture and be done with the stalking.

Seto doubted it.

"Then how have you been spending your time indoors?" she asked.

Seto focused on her for a moment. She looked every bit the part of a therapist, glasses, light, shoulder-length hair that had a wave by the ear that looked like it was from a pen constantly being tucked there, cardigan, and neutral colors. He understood what she was doing and couldn't decide how he felt about it. It wasn't quite to the point of coddling him, but it didn't feel as considerate of his space as she was trying to make it seem.

"Watching movies, talking, reading. It's been quiet, which is sort of great." Mokuba's eyes widened when he turned to Seto. "It's been great for me," he said. "Since it's with you."

"I know," Seto said, rolling the bottle cap around his thumb.

"Is this really what you want to talk about? We're only here for an hour, once a week," Mokuba said. "Shouldn't we be talking about…I don't know, anything relevant?"

Jennings smiled and folded her hands in her lap. "I won't bill this visit since we're just trying to decide if we're a good fit. Ask me questions back. Let me know anything you think I should know. I want to make sure you're in the best possible hands. That may not mean me."

"Why would we say anything if you might recommend us to someone else?"

"It's fine," Seto said.

Even though Seto didn't want to talk with anyone about what had happened, he understood it was a necessity. Not just for him, but for Mokuba as well. Mokuba would need to talk to someone, and he wanted Seto to do the same.

"If talking about school is all you need to do," Jennings said, "Then we'll talk about school. Having someone who wants to listen never hurts."

When Seto didn't answer, Mokuba checked with him, twice, before deciding, "I'll step out for a while. Just outside the door, okay, Seto? I promise. Right outside."

Seto nodded once and touched the bottle cap to his lips. Jennings sounded nothing like him, either of them. There was no way he could get her voice confused with either of them, and that meant there was less risk of him zoning out. He would be okay. He had to be.

But the door closed and Mokuba was gone, leaving Seto alone with his thoughts and a stranger who wanted him to share the memories the bottle cap left at bay. The darkness began to creep into his vision, followed by the voice he knew too well, the voice that always came when Mokuba was gone.

"Why are you here?" Jennings asked, her tone confused and different enough Seto stopped spinning the bottle cap. He had thought the answer self-explanatory. What else were people supposed to do after a trauma?

"I don't know."

"You don't have to be," she told him. "Did someone put you up to this?"

Seto couldn't remember. Maybe Mokuba had suggested it, or it could have been one of the detectives, or Roland. He couldn't remember why he had decided to come talk to someone about something he wanted to forget. It would have made much more sense to stay home in the house that didn't feel like his own, but to have stayed with Mokuba where they could be together.

Mokuba had left the room. He was gone and there was no guarantee any of this was real, save the bottle cap.

"I don't know."

"You don't have to talk about it. Your life is much more than what happened."

How did she know? The man—Haru had taken his life and maybe there was nothing left to reclaim, nothing to cling to for the hope of moving on. Maybe Seto was gone and the only thing that mattered was knowing what was real and what was all in his head. Why did he want to keep going when he would end up back there every night?

Mokuba would want him to talk, about anything.

"He was my world for four years," Seto ended up saying. "Now it's stopped spinning."

"And I'm sure you know what I want to say to that."

Seto did.

"People…people tell me they're _glad_ I got out," Seto said, clipping his words and holding back anything personal. "Their wording is upbeat, like if they mention anything honest, I'll break."

How was he supposed to tell them there was nothing left whole to be broken? That his world had been real before, that there was nothing left to coddle or talk around?

"They're happy," Jennings said. "And they probably feel guilty about it."

"They should." Except Mokuba. "They shouldn't get to be happy."

She nodded and slouched a little in her seat. Seto's back remained straight and rigid, and he scrutinized her to decide if him being uncomfortable meant she should feel the same. The slouch was so slight she could have not realized she was doing it. Could he hold an accident against her?

"What would you like them to feel?"

"Nothing."

"Would it be easier if they only talked about missing you? Certainly they did."

Seto shook his head and started rolling the bottle cap again. "Most didn't." Only Mokuba, and maybe Roland on occasion. And Seto wasn't sure how confident he was in assuming Roland did. It was more likely he just felt guilt over letting the men walk out and disappear with Seto.

"Have you heard anything from your father?"

"Other than being disowned?"

"Other than that, yes."

He hadn't been trying to get in touch with Gozaburo, and hadn't been interested in looking into contacting someone in prison. The most he had done was check, to be sure, that they hadn't ended up in the same one. The only thing that could have made any of this worse was for the two of them to exchange stories.

"No."

"Do you think you'll ever want to?"

"No."

What point would there be in talking to Gozaburo? Seto wasn't the heir to anything, he wasn't a Kaiba, he wasn't anything. Gozaburo didn't want him just as much as Seto didn't want Gozaburo. He had no need for that life anymore.

So what did he want?

"What do you want?" she asked, almost right as Seto had the thought. It caught and held his attention more than anything else she had said to him before. He wanted to forget, didn't he? If he could forget, then…

Then what? Forgetting was practically the same as forgiveness, and those two, those two didn't deserve anything resembling forgiveness. Was that what she would tell him to do, maybe not today, but on the fifty-second visit? _Seto, you have to let go of the hate in your heart and accept things as they are. Move on and forget._

No.

"What do you tell people to do?" What was the advice given to people without any life left? _Find something to live for? Make the most out of what they left you with?_

"It's not my job to tell you how to live your life," Jennings said. "I'm here for you, however you need me to be."

"And if I need you to tell me what to do?"

Seto hated the sound of his voice. The more he spoke, the more it grated on him. Had it always been this rough, this broken, this harsh? Was it only the years of silence making Seto forget how he had sounded all along?

"I think you need to answer that for yourself. Maybe not today, but eventually, you'll know what you want."

What he wanted? How could he want anything?

Seto ran his hands over the couch, thinking back to the leather one in Gozburo's office that squeaked every time Seto had crossed his legs the other way. It had forced him to sit so rigidly while he waited for Gozaburo to get off the phone or to get to whatever point he had called Seto in to lecture on. But this couch was covered in cushion and fabric, too much to make any sound.

"Would you be more comfortable if we brought Mokuba back in?"

His own comfort had never crossed his mind. The nearest exit, the bottle cap, Mokuba's location, the lingering memories of hands on him, those all crossed his mind, but not whether he was comfortable. Seto couldn't think of any answer. He didn't know if he was comfortable now on the couch that didn't protest with his movements. He didn't know if he was comfortable anywhere.

"No."

Jennings rephrased. "Would you like me to call Mokuba back in?"

After thinking about it for a moment, forcing his mind to accept wanting anything to be achievable, Seto nodded. Experimenting with him out of the room had failed, and the darkness at the edge of his vision was threatening to close in on itself. That would just leave the voice in his ear that promised forever.

She stood and went to the door, softly asking Mokuba to come in once more.

"I'd like to ask you the same question I just asked your brother," Jennings said. "Which is what you hope to get out of these sessions."

Mokuba paused like Seto had. "I don't know. I guess we need some sort of…I don't want to say closure, but, oh, I don't know, understanding? I guess that's as close as I'll get. We need to come to an understanding about everything. I mean, it happened. We aren't supposed to just forget all that."

"It happened," Jennings repeated, nodding as she spoke. "I think that's the mindset you should base everything on moving forward."

"That's it?"

"That's it. What happened to you both, what you both went through, it isn't something anyone should have had to. But it happened. Maybe the first thing we need to work on is accepting that."

Seto fiddled with the bottle cap and Mokuba bounced a foot, just like the had never left the lobby. They both looked ahead, but not at Jennings. Anywhere else felt like a safer focus, or at least, it was Seto's mindset. Mokuba could have been distracted for any number of reasons. Seto let the words echo again and again—it happened it happened it happened it happened—because hearing them didn't make them feel any more real.

How could it have happened? How did one man, against all reason and odds, break into KaibaCorp, and keep Seto under everyone's nose for four years? It shouldn't have been possible, but it happened.

It happened.

"How do we accept it?" Mokuba asked.

"It happened," Seto said. "She's right."

"But Seto—"

"It happened," he said again. "He kept me for four years."

"I don't think talking about it is a good idea," Mokuba said. "You haven't seen him when he zones out. Sometimes it takes forever to get him back."

With a quick nod, Jennings answered, "I understand what you're saying. But if that's the case, Seto, do you feel grounded in the present?" She waited just long enough for Seto's reply, a minor shake of the head, before going on. "I think you zoning out is your mind trying to find any truth to cling to. And accepting what happened as a part of your present will help with that, given time."

She was right. Seto didn't know how she had figured it out in such a short amount of time, but just the fact that she had pinned down so much with just one meeting made Seto trust her, not fully, but enough that he wouldn't mind seeing her again. At least she seemed to understand the struggle. She was the first person not to look at him as though he was too far gone.

"What happens next?" Mokuba asked.

"We get started," Jennings said.

And Seto almost felt ready for it.


End file.
